As a former student Of the Elan school and employee of Joe Ricci at approximatly the same time as Mr skakel,I have taken a great interest in this case. I truly believe the Skakels have far more knowledge of this horrible crime than they claim. The atmosphere at the Elan school is overwhelming pressure at times.It is taught the key to success is ridding yourself of any guilt that may linger in, and 'destroy' you. with that I believe that Mike in fact did admit to this crime during his stay and believed that it would never catch up to him outside of the school walls or for that matter, any other students taking him seriously enough to even recall his admission.(some of which also admited or fabricated tales of murder,rape and other serious crimes) Joe Ricci in my opinion deserves the negative press and the label 'duck in a raincoat' simply because he acted with no class whatsoever during the courts investigations and in my oppinion was flamboyant and used the occasion to flaunt his power his wealth and his status by hiding behind legal barriers and camoflages yet at the same time arrived to hearings in limos, throwing himself into the publics eye via the media. It sickened me to see him do this because I sincerely believe Mr. Ricci has knowledge of skakel admiting to the murder of dear martha,but not in a way that would be significant to him. At Elan school Joe Ricci was very rarely seen and had little contact with the students, every student there was intimidated by Joe's presence and none had a relationship with him well enough to ever bring up something as serious as murder.I do not believe that Mr.Ricci had any direct confesion or discusion with skakel admiting to murder and dont believe Ricci took any one students problems to heart sincerely enough to remember it for more than that day. but I do believe that it could have been braught to his attention after a smaller group sessions and disregarded as many other confessions or problems are. The former student(s) who testified to witnessing Mr. Ricci confront Mr.Skakel about the murder is completly possible and no student would be surprised that Skakel was sent to elan for murder.at that age alot of children are naive and most of us where there as an option to corrections or prison. Mr. Ricci would never have mentioned such a thing in front of anyone other than to make it appear as though it was common knowledge that Skakel had killed someone Mr Ricci would never expose the possibility that a senetors nephew commited murder in front of so many people including other staff members as a new discovery. there are smaller group sessions often run by students who either graduated the program or were close to leaving on merits. during and after these sessions, was a code :nothing goes outside of the group session and there was serious consequences if this code was violated, this code was taken seriously enough to where it was not uncommon at all to hear someone admit to serious crimes, BUT theres always a small group of defiant people that will risk the consequences to share in secrecy what someone else talked about in groups.I did.I'm sure someone present in a group session with Skakel did too,damn sure. A former councilor at Elan was also called to testify and I really have no idea if he did and would be sorry to hear so.Peter McCann in my eyes cannot be taken seriously about anything more than his drinking and/or drug problems at the time of his employment at Elan.I personally take complete responsibility for exposing his actions that lead to his termination from elan in the early eighties. He was always intoxicated (though he carried it well on most occasions)and I often found him hungover or passed out in one of the dorm rooms as I was in a possition of trust to be able to walk freely around the school grounds and buildings. If Mr.McCann in fact did hear a confession,and took the issue to Mr.Ricci I would only guess that the response from Mr.Ricci would have been in principal the confidentiality code,and mr.McCanns drinking problem allowed him to let it go at that. I would bet that he doesnt remember the name of the eager kid that got him fired after pleading with him to help himself so he could help his students and keeping his secret to myself. I have no intensions to discredit the schools ability to help people in desperate need or taint the schools reputation as a possitive experience for its students, it literally saves lives! But I have to say the school is not in a possition to protect a murderer simply based on a weak claim of patient doctor confidentiality, because none of the people who may have heard skakels confesion can call themselves a doctor :cheers: :cheers:
